Guides

Introduction to CartAI

CartAI is the AI agent that handles checkout.

One API to deploy a specialized agent that navigates any web property and completes the transaction — checkout, subscription sign-up, invoice payment, order submission, anywhere a transaction has to happen.

Automate it. Embed it, or enable it on surfaces that never had it. Composable. Reliable. Developer-first.

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What CartAI Does

CartAI's makes it easy to embed a complete checkout experience on any surface where products are displayed — a search result, a social post, a product recommendation, a loyalty dashboard. Your customers complete their purchase without ever leaving your platform.

Under the hood, CartAI's AI agents navigate merchant websites the way a human would — adding items to cart, selecting shipping, entering payment details, and confirming the order — all programmatically, all in the background. Every order placed is merchant-native: the retailer remains the merchant of record for all transactions, and customers receive order confirmations directly from the brand they purchased from.

How It Works

You provide a product URL, customer details, and payment credentials. CartAI handles everything from there.

Your App                    CartAI Agent               Merchant Website
    │                            │                            │
    │── POST /checkout ─────────►│                            │
    │◄─ { taskId } ─────────────│                            │
    │                            │── Navigates site ─────────►│
    │                            │   Adds to cart             │
    │                            │   Selects shipping         │
    │                            │   Completes payment        │
    │                            │◄── Order confirmed ────────│
    │◄─ Webhook: COMPLETED ──────│                            │
  1. Call POST /checkout — pass the product URL, customer shipping address, and payment provider credentials.
  2. Receive a taskId immediately — the checkout runs asynchronously in the background.
  3. The AI agent does the work — navigating the merchant's live website, selecting the right variant, applying your shipping strategy, and placing the order.
  4. Receive real-time status updates via webhook as the agent progresses through each stage.
  5. The order is live on the merchant's store — fulfilled, tracked, and supported through the merchant's standard processes.

No merchant-side integration. No checkout SDK. No redirect.

Use Cases

CartAI is a developer API built for platforms and applications that display products but don't own the transaction. If your users discover or interact with products on your surface, CartAI lets you close the loop — right there.

1. Search, Social & Discovery Platforms

Turn product discovery into instant purchase — without losing the user.

Search engines, social feeds, and content discovery platforms surface millions of products every day. But every "Buy" click today is a redirect — the user leaves, conversion attribution breaks, and the platform gets none of the transaction value.

With CartAI, a user searching for "white linen shirt under $80" can complete the purchase directly in the search results page. A user scrolling a shoppable feed can tap "Buy Now" on a product card and get an order confirmation without ever visiting the retailer's site. CartAI handles the full checkout in the background — size selection, shipping, payment — and fires a webhook when the order is placed.

Example integration: A product search engine adds a "Buy with CartAI" button next to each result. The user selects size and colour, confirms their saved address, and the order is placed on the retailer's site within seconds. The platform earns an affiliate or referral fee on every completed transaction.

2. Vertical AI Apps — Fashion, Beauty, Home, Interior, Auto, Electronics

From AI recommendation to confirmed purchase in a single interaction.

Vertical AI apps — personal stylists, interior design assistants, beauty advisors, car configurators — generate highly personalised product recommendations. But they consistently fail at the last step: sending the user away to buy. The handoff breaks the experience and kills conversion.

CartAI closes that gap. When your AI recommends a sofa, a skincare routine, or a specific laptop model, the user can purchase every item in that recommendation directly inside your app. CartAI handles multi-SKU, multi-merchant checkouts in parallel — so a full outfit recommendation across five brands becomes a single "Buy All" action with one confirmation.

Example integration: A fashion AI app generates a weekly outfit for the user across three brands. The user reviews the full look and taps "Buy All." CartAI creates three parallel checkout tasks, handles each merchant's checkout independently, and returns a single unified order summary.

3. Coupon, Cashback, Loyalty & Price Comparison Platforms

Apply the reward and complete the purchase — in one place.

Cashback and loyalty platforms have always faced the same problem: they can track a purchase after the redirect, but they can't control the checkout. Coupon codes fail at the merchant. Cashback tracking breaks. The user abandons mid-checkout on the retailer's site and the platform takes the blame.

With CartAI, your platform owns the transaction. You apply the coupon, calculate the cashback, and complete the checkout — all inside your product. No redirect means no attribution loss, no broken coupon codes, and no user drop-off at the merchant's checkout.

Example integration: A cashback platform identifies the best price for a specific product across five retailers. The user selects the best deal. CartAI completes the checkout on the winning retailer's site, applies any available coupon, and records the exact order total for cashback calculation — all without the user ever seeing the retailer's checkout page.

4. Editorial & Content Platforms

Turn every product mention into a shoppable moment.

Editorial platforms — magazines, product review sites, "best of" listicles, gift guides — drive enormous purchase intent but capture almost none of the transaction value. A glowing review drives traffic to the retailer. The platform gets an affiliate click. CartAI turns that into a completed order.

Embed a "Buy Now" button on any product mentioned in an article. When the reader clicks it, CartAI places the order natively on the retailer's site in the background. No new tab, no checkout form, no abandonment. The editorial surface becomes a direct commerce channel.

Example integration: A tech review site publishes "The 10 Best Mechanical Keyboards of 2026." Each product card has a "Buy Now" button powered by CartAI. Readers who are logged in with saved payment details can complete a purchase in two taps. The platform earns a transaction fee instead of an affiliate click.

5. Influencer Platforms

Let audiences buy the moment inspiration strikes.

Influencer commerce lives and dies by impulse. A creator shows a product. The audience wants it now. But "link in bio" kills the moment — the user navigates away, loses interest, and the creator earns a fraction of what they influenced.

CartAI makes influencer content directly transactional. A product tagged in a post, a reel, or a livestream can be purchased by the audience without leaving the platform. CartAI handles the checkout in the background while the viewer keeps watching. The creator earns on completed transactions, not just clicks.

Example integration: A livestream shopping platform integrates CartAI so viewers can tap a featured product during the stream and purchase it without leaving the video. The influencer's product list is pre-loaded with URLs and variant data. CartAI places the order the moment the viewer confirms — the stream keeps playing.

6. Financial & Banking Apps

Make shopping rewards spendable — right inside the app.

Banking and fintech apps sit on enormous purchase intent: credit card reward balances, cashback points, buy-now-pay-later credits, co-branded loyalty currencies. But spending these rewards almost always requires the user to leave the app and navigate a clunky rewards portal or a merchant's checkout.

CartAI enables banks and fintech platforms to build a native shopping and checkout experience directly inside their app. Users browse products, apply their rewards balance, and complete the purchase — all within the banking UI. CartAI places the order on the merchant's site using the customer's payment credentials, with the rewards applied at the point of purchase.

Example integration: A credit card app builds a "Shop with Rewards" section powered by CartAI. Users browse curated products, see the price in both dollars and points, and complete the checkout inside the app using a combination of reward points and their card balance. CartAI handles the full purchase on the merchant's site, passing the correct payment credentials from the bank's payment provider integration.

Building Something Different?

The use cases above are just the beginning. If you're exploring something different — a niche vertical, an unconventional surface, or a workflow no one has automated yet — we want to know. Drop us a line at [email protected]